Star Trek 3 will hit theaters in 2016, just in time for Trek’s 50th anniversary

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

The third installment in Paramount’s revitalized Star Trek franchise has a release date. You’ll be able to check in on the Enterprise crew again on July 8, 2016. It wasn’t clear when the next Trek film would debut after some shuffling of directors, but Paramount seems confident in the future of the franchise now. This date will coincide with Star Trek’s 50th anniversary. The original TV series debuted way back in 1966, if you can believe it.

This comes after a long period of uncertainty following the departure of director JJ Abrams, who left to take over Disney’s new Star Wars trilogy. It was rather an open secret that Abrams was not a Trek fan by nature, but he wasn’t able to do Star Wars as Lucasfilm had no plans for new films. Then the Disney acquisition happened and everything changed. Abrams jumped ship and Star Trek screenwriter Roberto Orci stepped in. That didn’t last, though, and Fast and Furious director Justin Lin was announced as his replacement just a few days ago.

The Abrams-era Star Trek films follow an alternate timeline, which was created in the 2009 relaunch when standard timeline Spock traveled back in time and screwed everything up. Star Trek: Into Darkness was released in 2013 to mostly positive reviews. Although, for Star Trek fans the somewhat predictable reimagining of Wrath of Khan was contentious.

There’s no way to know what Justin Lin will do with the third movie, but Abrams and Orci are still producing. Their fingerprints will probably be all over the final product, but maybe there will be less lens flair this time. We can only hope.